Hailed as a classic by leading herbalist Rosemary Gladstar this botanical compendium provides a wide-ranging history of herbalism and useful guidance for healing with herbs Matthew Wood is one of the United States most renowned herbalists and the author of Seven Herbs: Plants as Healers a watershed book in teaching herbal healing as a part of total wellness. With The Book of Herbal Wisdom he continues and expands this study creating a must-read guide for anyone who works in the natural health field or is interested in self-healing with herbs. Wood creates a vast and sweeping history of herbalism drawing on Western botanical knowledge homeopathy Traditional Chinese medicine and Native American shamanic botany. Detailing the history and use of more than forty plants he shows how each tradition views a plant as well as its use in cases drawn from his own herbal and homeopathic practice. An initial section describes signatures similar and patterns in these traditions and elements temperaments and constitutions. Wood has two objectives: to demonstrate how herbal medicines are agents of healing and wisdom and to give the reader a useful catalog of plants for medicinal uses. His clinical observations of his patients bear the wry wisdom of the country doctor; his love of plants is evident in lush botanical descriptions which show the connection between remedies--whether homeopathic Chinese or Native American--and the plants from which they are derived. An introduction to centuries of lore about healing from indigenous traditions The Book of Herbal Wisdom integrates and describes North American Indian medicine homeopathy Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western herbalism like no other contemporary botanical compendium.